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Automatic recognition of defect areas on a semiconductor wafer using multiple scanning

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IOP PUBLISHING MEASUREMENT SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503 (12pp) doi:10.1088/0957-0233/20/7/075503

Automatic recognition of defect areas

on a semiconductor wafer using multiple
scanning electron microscope images
Ryo Nakagaki1 , Toshifumi Honda1 and Koji Nakamae2
1
Production Engineering Research Laboratory, Hitachi, Ltd., 292 Yoshida-cho, Totsuka-ku,
Yokohama 244-0817, Japan
2
Department of Information Systems Engineering, Graduate School of Information Science and
Technology, Osaka University, 2-1 Yamada-Oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan
E-mail: ryo.nakagaki.zs@hitachi.com, toshifumi.honda.td@hitachi.com and
nakamae@ist.osaka-u.ac.jp

Received 2 April 2009, in final form 6 May 2009

Published 10 June 2009
Online at stacks.iop.org/MST/20/075503

Abstract
A technique for high-precision and automatic recognition of defect areas on a semiconductor
wafer using scanning electron microscope (SEM) images is proposed. The proposed technique
inputs multiple SEM images formed by selectively detecting secondary electrons and
backscattered electrons emitted from the specimen by irradiating with primary electrons, and
defect areas are then automatically recognized by comparison with reference images. The
number of detected secondary electrons and backscattered electrons is highly dependent on the
surface roughness of the defect areas, namely the height and depth of defects; therefore, a
surface-roughness analysis from input images is conducted and the result is used to determine
the mixing proportion for multiple difference images. The proposed technique aims to obtain
high recognition accuracy for process wafers that contain various kinds of defects with a wide
variety of height and depth. The technique provides effective pre-processing for automating
the classification of defects, and is expected to contribute to improvements to the efficacy of
process monitoring and yield management in the fabrication of semiconductor devices.
Experimental results with two process wafers (involving 200 defect samples, each of which
belongs to one of the nine defect classes) have confirmed that the proposed technique is
capable of automatic recognition of defect areas with an accuracy of 98.9%.

Keywords: defect inspection, automatic recognition, defect classification, semiconductor

manufacturing, yield management
(Some figures in this article are in colour only in the electronic version)

1. Introduction detect, analyze and take appropriate countermeasures against

Developments to achieve ever-finer circuit patterns in
semiconductor devices are progressing on a continual basis
[1]. To reduce the pattern size, introduction of new processes
and novel materials is essential, and, as a result, there has
been an increasing diversity of defects that occur during the
steps of device manufacturing. Furthermore, as the pattern
size is reduced, the size of defects that are critical to devices
has become smaller. Consequently, the ability to rapidly
defects is of increasing importance for rapid yield ramping and
assurance of stable manufacturing processes [2].
Inline inspection systems, which are usually comprised
of optical wafer inspection tools and scanning electron
microscope (SEM)-based review tools, are deployed at
semiconductor wafer production sites for process monitoring
[3]. Optical wafer inspection tools are used for the rapid
detection of defects on wafers. Such tools capture images of
the wafer surface and compare them with those taken from

0957-0233/09/075503+12$30.00 1 © 2009 IOP Publishing Ltd Printed in the UK

Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
Figure 1. Inline inspection system for semiconductor
manufacturing.
Figure 2. ADC process flow.
neighboring chips that are formed in an array manner on
a wafer. The pixel size of the images is in the order of
several 100–10 nm, which is barely sufficient to determine
the presence of defects. The detected defects are subjected
to review and analysis using a SEM-based review tool with
nanometer-order resolution. The defect review/analysis
operation involves a manual review of the defect appearance,
elemental composition analysis and classification of the
defects based on their size and type. The trend and frequency
of defect occurrence are then statistically analyzed from
the review/analysis results (defect root cause analysis), and
the priority of countermeasures to be taken is determined
(figure 1).
In order to improve the reliability and efficiency of the
defect review/analysis process, it is necessary to test as many
wafers as possible and classify as many defects as possible
with a high degree of precision. In order to achieve this goal,
there is an urgent requirement for SEM-based review tools
that automatically collect defect images in high throughput
and classify them with a high degree of precision [3].
Automatic defect classification (ADC) is a function that
automatically classifies defect images into pre-determined
defect classes based on their appearance [4–8]. Figure 2
shows the typical flow of ADC processing. An image
to be inspected and a reference image of a non-defective
region are input for comparison. ADC first recognizes defect
2
R Nakagaki et al
areas in the inspection image by comparing the two images.
Various kinds of defect characteristics are then quantitatively
calculated as a feature vector. The elements of the feature
vector include defect size, length, height, texture and so on.
Second, ADC executes classification processing for the given
feature vector. Several methods have been proposed for
classification processing. One is a rule-based classifier [4]
that classifies defects according to pre-determined rules. A
simple example of the rule-based classifier is thresholding
with respect to defect size, so that the defect classes are
defined by the size of the defects. In addition, a learning-based
classifier has been proposed [5–7], which involves classifying
the defects based on the statistical properties of feature vectors
and referencing learning data prepared from sample defects
collected in advance for each class. Recently, cases involving
the use of a classification algorithm called the support vector
machine (SVM) have also been reported [7]. However, the
rule-based classification method, while offering the advantage
of not requiring the prior collection of samples, suffers from
a lack of flexibility with respect to changes in classification
criteria. On the other hand, the learning-based classification
scheme, while relatively amenable to changes in classification
criteria, suffers from a lack of stability in situations where
the collection of large amounts of sample data is difficult.
To circumvent these disadvantages, a hybrid-type approach,
which involves a combination of these methods, has also been
proposed [8].
Each of the above three steps of ADC needs to be robust
for various types of defects that occur in device manufacturing
process steps in order to obtain an accurate classification
result. This paper proposes a technique for the automatic
recognition of defect areas from an SEM image, which is the
first step of ADC. Defect area recognition processing serves as
a pre-processing for the calculation of feature vectors and the
classification of defects. Furthermore, the ability to identify
defect areas from given images with a high degree of precision
is critical to obtain a classification result with high accuracy.
A large number of techniques have been proposed to
identify defects using comparison [9, 10]. However, although
such techniques intend to rapidly identify the presence of
defects, they usually involve the setting of a coarse pixel size
relative to defect size. For example, the technique in [9],
which is intended to detect defects from an SEM image, as in
the case of this study, is designed to detect defects measuring
approximately 30 nm from images with a 60 μm pixel size.
Reference [10], which reports a technique for wafer inspection
using dark-field optical images, is designed to detect 150 nm
defects from a dark-field image with a 2 μm pixel size. These
defect recognition techniques are not suitable for ADC-type
defect analyses that require the acquisition of high-resolution
images of defects (for example, a 3 nm pixel size when dealing
with a 100 nm defect size).
Recognition of hole regions from SEM images of contact-
hole patterns has been reported as a defect recognition
and analysis technique using high-resolution images [12].
However, the target of inspection is limited to contact-hole
patterns, and the technique is not designed to address the
recognition of defect areas containing a wide variety of defects.
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
(a)
Figure 3. Characteristics of secondary and backscattered electrons. (a) Energy distribution of secondary and backscattered electrons. (b)
Emission of secondary and backscattered electrons from a circuit pattern with a trapezoidal-shaped cross section.
In other fields, such as thin film transistor (TFT) display
panel manufacturing, similar inspection techniques have also
been proposed [13, 14]. However, optical microscope images
are used for inspection, because the defects that occur in the
fabrication of TFT devices are measured in micrometers, and
techniques involving the use of SEM images have not been
proposed.
This paper proposes a defect area recognition technique
applicable to the review/analysis of various types of defects
on semiconductor wafers through the use of an SEM with
nanometer-order resolution.
Section 2 discusses the principles and imaging
characteristics of the defect review SEM. Section 3 describes
the characteristics of semiconductor defects that are the objects
of recognition and discusses the technological challenges
that must be overcome in order to achieve high precision
and automatic recognition. Section 4 provides an overview
of the proposed defect recognition technique that utilizes
multiple SEM images taken with different detectors, and
section 5 describes a defect surface-roughness analysis
method that is used to determine the mixing proportion for
multiple difference images in the proposed defect recognition
technique. Section 6 presents the experimental results that
verify the effectiveness of the proposed technique. Finally,
section 7 provides a summary and possible expansion of future
research efforts.
2. Defect review SEM
The principles of imaging with a defect review SEM and the
characteristics of images obtained are described with reference
to figures 3 and 4. Image capture is undertaken based on
the same principles as that used in a conventional SEM [15].
Specifically, an electron beam, emitted from an electron gun,
is focused using an objective lens and is directed onto the
specimen. Electrons emitted from the surface of the specimen
are detected by detectors. By converting the number of
electrons detected (that is, the electron intensity) into a digital
value, a pixel value associated with the position of irradiation is
obtained. By controlling the deflector and causing the incident
beam to scan the specimen surface in a rectangular pattern, a
two-dimensional digital image corresponding to the scanned
area is obtained.
Generally, irradiation of a specimen with an electron
beam causes the emission of a wide variety of electrons
3
R Nakagaki et al
(b)
with various energy levels. Figure 3(a), which represents
the relationship between the number of emitted electrons
and the energy of electrons, indicates that large numbers of
electrons are generated, especially in two regions: the low-
energy region up to 50 eV and the high-energy region equal
in intensity to the input energy (approximately 2 keV in the
figure). These electrons are referred to as secondary electrons
and backscattered electrons, respectively.
The secondary and backscattered electrons exhibit
several different properties, for example their directionality.
Secondary electrons, because of their low energy, are easily
amenable to a change in direction when the electromagnetic
field around the specimen is controlled, whereas it is difficult
to regulate the direction of backscattered electrons, because
of their high energy. For example, if an electron beam is
irradiated on a circuit pattern with a trapezoid-shaped cross
section, as shown in figure 3(b), the secondary electrons can
be detected above the sample by controlling the surrounding
electromagnetic field, regardless of whether they are generated
from the left or right inclines. In contrast, it is generally
difficult to capture backscattered electrons emitted from the
left and right inclines using a single detector.
In addition, secondary and backscattered electrons differ
in the depth from which they are produced. For example,
secondary electrons are generated from a region close to
the surface (usually 10 nm) of the specimen. Therefore, if
the specimen surface contains a steep slope, the secondary
electrons tend to exhibit the so-called edge effect, wherein
large numbers of electrons are generated near the slope. In
contrast, for backscattered electrons, which are generated from
deeper sites, the edge effect is not observed. Furthermore,
voltage contrast can be observed on secondary electron
images, because the number of low-energy electrons detected
by detectors has significant dependence on the surface
potential. In contrast, material contrast is highly visible
in backscattered electron images, because the number of
backscattered electrons is strongly dependent on the material
underlying the specimen.
By focusing on the differences in properties between
these two types of electrons, a suitable arrangement of
detectors and regulation of the electromagnetic field in the
specimen chamber enables the acquisition of a variety of
images exhibiting different properties. Figures 4(a) and (b)
show a diagram of the review SEM and the detector layout,
respectively. The review SEM is equipped with one detector
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503 R Nakagaki et al

(a) (b)

(c)

Figure 4. Review SEM used in the present study. (a) Diagram of the review SEM. (b) Layout of side detectors. (c) Example images
captured using the three detectors.

(referred to as the top detector) directly above the specimen

and two detectors (referred to as (left, right) side detectors)
diagonally over the specimen. The left and right detectors are
aligned at 45◦ to the chip layout coordinate system, as shown in
figure 4(b). This detector configuration is aimed at obtaining
high contrast images from circuit patterns, which usually run
horizontally or vertically to the chip layout.
Figure 4(c) shows examples of images captured using
the three detectors. While the image captured with the
top detector, which is subject to the edge effect, shows an
extremely bright circuit-pattern edge, the edge effect is absent
in the images captured with the side detectors; instead, a
Figure 5. Basic process flow of the comparison inspection
gradation of brightness corresponding to the orientation of technique.
the specimen surface is observed. The reason for this is that
the top and side detectors principally detect secondary and
backscattered electrons, respectively. Images acquired with
the top detector are referred to as top images and images
captured with the (left, right) side detectors are referred to as
(left, right) images.

3. Technical challenges for automatic defect area

recognition from SEM images

Semiconductor devices are formed in units of chips in an

array manner on a wafer. Therefore, inspection of a test
area is usually conducted by comparing it with the same
area on an adjacent chip. The basic concept underlying this
approach, as detailed in figure 5, involves the following: image
registration to compensate for the difference in the field of
view of two images, calculation of a difference image from
the two images and recognition of the defect area by execution
of thresholding on the resulting difference image. This basic
concept is also employed in the proposed defect recognition
technique. However, the recognition of nanometer-order
defects on semiconductor wafers requires solutions to the
following technical issues.
Figure 6. Top and left images of three types of defects.
Figure 6 shows the top and the (left) side images of three
types of defect (‘pattern open’, ‘foreign particle’ and ‘scratch’)
that occurred on wafers during production. The pattern open
defect is apparent in both the top and side images. On the other
hand, the foreign particle is visible in the top image, but is not
clearly visible in the side images. This is because the circuit
patterns near the defect prevent the emitted backscattered
electrons from reaching the detectors and that area becomes

4
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
(a)
Figure 7. Recognition results for two different particles using the conventional technique. (a) Top and left images of two types of particle
defects. (b) Recognized defect area using the conventional comparison technique depicted in figure 5.
a dead angle on the side images. For scratch defects, it is
evident that while they are clearly visible in the side images,
they are not visible in the top image, because only side images
are suitable for detecting the surface roughness of a defect,
which is a distinctive feature of a scratch defect.
Therefore, images for recognition from suitable detectors
are highly dependent on the class of the defect. However,
when recognizing defects, the defect class is unknown and
there is no way to designate suitably detected images. Thus,
for the automatic recognition of semiconductor defects, it is
necessary to explore techniques that utilize multiple images,
on which the defect may or may not be visible.
In addition, images that contain visual information of
defects do not necessarily contain sufficient information for
defect recognition with high accuracy, which makes the task
even more challenging. Figure 7 shows the top and the (left)
side images of two different types of particle defects (surface
particle and embedded particle). These defects are visible
on both images; however, the images are not fully useful for
the recognition of defect areas. To illustrate the situation,
detection experiments were conducted using the conventional
comparison inspection technique illustrated in figure 5. The
results (figure 7(b)) indicate that, for an embedded particle,
defect areas can be reasonably recognized using the side
images; however, the algorithm fails to detect the defect area
when using the top image. In contrast, for a surface particle,
defect areas are reasonably recognized using the top image;
however, when using the side images, the area surrounding
the particle is also recognized as defect areas, which creates a
problem of over-recognition. These results indicate that, for
embedded and surface particles, their respective top and side
images are not appropriate for automatic recognition with high
accuracy.
Therefore, it is necessary to explore techniques that detect
defects among multiple images, on which the defect may or
may not be visible, and even if the defect is visible in one or
both of the images, the information may not be necessary and
sufficient for recognition with high accuracy. The following
section describes a defect recognition method capable of
addressing these challenges.
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R Nakagaki et al
(b)
4. Proposed defect recognition technique
4.1. Overall process flow
Figure 8 provides an overall flowchart of the defect recognition
algorithm employed in the proposed technique. The proposed
technique consists of two steps: (A) defect recognition with
multiple SEM images and (B) defect surface analysis.
In step (A), difference images of the inspection and
reference are calculated for each of the input images, and
these results are then mixed and final defect detection results
are extracted by thresholding. The reason for conducting
comparison inspections of each input image is that the
algorithm must be robust for defects, which may or may not be
visible in any of the images. Step (A) uses a total of six images,
comprising both inspection and reference top images and (left,
right) side images. Step (B) is performed to determine the
mixing proportion of the three difference images calculated
in step (A). The surface analysis involves analysis of the
roughness of the defect surface using four images, consisting
of (left, right) side images of both the defect and the reference.
The following section describes step (A), defect
recognition using multiple SEM images. The underlying
principles and details of the algorithm used in step (B) are
presented in section 5.
4.2. Defect recognition with multiple images
Figure 9 shows a flowchart for defect recognition with multiple
images, which consists of the following steps.
Step 1. Registration
Registration is conducted in order to provide correction
of the field of view deviation between the inspection and
reference images. This process is further divided into the
following two steps.
Step 1-1. Global registration
Global registration is first performed using the entire
image. The purpose of the registration is to compensate for
the deviation of the field of view between the two images.
During the capture of inspection and reference images, wafer
stage movement is required, which may cause a micrometer
order positional error and this causes the deviation of the
field of view between the two images. A template-matching
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
Figure 8. Overall process flow of the proposed defect recognition algorithm.
Figure 9. Process flow for defect recognition using multiple SEM images.
technique is applied, with the reference as the template and
the inspection image as the target. To measure the degree
of matching, a normalized cross correlation coefficient [17],
which is commonly employed for template-pattern matching
techniques, is used.
Step 1-2. Local registration
After global registration, local registration is performed.
Each of the inspection and reference images is divided
into a large number of small square areas, and registration
between corresponding small square regions of each image
is conducted. Local registration is required, because in an
electron microscope image, positional deviation of the beam
can arise from the electrostatic charge of the surface when
the beam moves in a scanning motion, which results in image
distortion. As with global registration, a normalized cross
6
R Nakagaki et al
correlation coefficient is used for local registration. The
number of small squares, which must be determined by the
degree of distortion in a given image, was set to 16 for
the experimental tests described in section 6.
Global and local registration processes for all three image
pairs (top, left and right image pairs) are not usually necessary,
as only one image pair is sufficient. For example, the top image
pair is used for the calculation of the amount of positional shift,
and the calculated values are used not only for the top image
pair, but also for the left and right image pairs, to create a
deviation-corrected image.
Step 2. Difference image calculation
A difference image is created by performing pixel-by-
pixel difference computations on the registered inspection and
reference images. Circuit patterns formed on a semiconductor
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
wafer are subject to fluctuations such as ‘line-edge roughness’,
and as a result these features in the inspection and reference
images are not perfectly identical. Moreover, positions at
which the electron beam is directed onto circuit patterns are
not perfectly identical from one pattern to another. Therefore,
if two images are compared in a simplistic pixel-by-pixel
manner, areas that should not be recognized as defects
can potentially produce a strong difference signal, resulting
in misidentification. To avoid this problem, perturbation
difference processing [16] is performed. The perturbation
method involves inclusion of the pixels surrounding a pixel
under inspection in the calculation of the difference value of
the pixel. By assigning the size of the adjacent pixels to be
considered as a parameter, an allowable pattern error between
the inspection and reference images is set.
Step 3. Mixing the multiple difference images
Three difference images for the top image and the left and
right images obtained by step 2 are gathered into one difference
image by mixing them as shown in (1):
Sub-total (x, y) = ω · |Sub-top (x, y)|
+ (1 − ω) · (|Sub-left (x, y)| + |Sub-right (x, y)|)/2. (1)
The values of Sub-total(x, y), Sub-top(x, y),
Sub-left(x, y), Sub-right(x, y) represent the pixel val-
ues of the mixed difference image, top difference image, left
difference image and right difference image at the coordinate
position of (x, y), respectively. The weight coefficient ω is
a parameter with the range of (0.0, 1.0). This represents a
relative weight between the top and side images with respect
to the difference image, and this coefficient is automatically
set according to the method described in section 5.
Step 4. Thresholding
Thresholding is performed on the mixed difference image.
Pixels with intensities greater than a pre-set threshold value are
recognized as defects.
The purpose of the algorithm is to mix the three detected
images after calculation of the difference images, in order to
detect defects that are visible only on one of the three detected
images without failure. The weight values for left and right
difference images are treated as the same, because the left and
right images differ only in the direction of the detectors, and
the imaging characteristics are assumed to be the same.
The following section explains the method for the
automatic determination of the weight parameters (ω) that
are required in the image mixing process.
5. Surface-roughness analysis for the determination
of the mixing proportion for multiple difference
images
5.1. Key points
The defect recognition algorithm described in the preceding
section requires the setting of a proportion, in which the top,
left and right difference images are mixed. For this purpose,
a method of setting the mixing ratio was developed using
the results from the analysis of the surface-roughness state
7
R Nakagaki et al
Figure 10. Recognition result for four different defects using the
proposed algorithm with weighting of ω = 1.0 and 0.0.
of the defects. The state of surface roughness is focused
on, because the surface-roughness state of defects, that is,
their heights and depths, affect the manner in which secondary
and backscattered electrons are emitted, which determines the
visibility of defects on both the top and the (left, right) side
images. A description of the underlying principles follows.
Figure 10 shows the top and left images of four
representative defects in terms of different surface-roughness
states (protrusion, dent, flat and bumpy (mixture of protrusion
and dent)). The results of defect recognition with mixing
weight parameters of ω = 1.0 and ω = 0.0, using the
proposed algorithm (figure 8), are also shown. The recognition
result is depicted as the boundary of a defect area, which is
calculated as a convex hull of the detected defect binary image.
The subsections below discuss the relationship between the
recognition results and the surface-roughness state of defects.
Discussion 1.
For the case of protrusion-type defects, over-recognition
of defect areas can arise when the side images are used. In
contrast, the defect can be properly recognized by using the top
image. The cause of over-recognition is assumed to be the fact
that the shadow (not shade) around the defect is recognized as
a defect area.
Discussion 2.
Dent-type and bumpy-type defects are undetectable or
under-recognized in the top images. It is necessary to use the
side images for these types of defects, which require setting a
small value of ω. Even when the side images for recognition
are used, over-recognition does not occur.
Discussion 3.
For the case of flat-type defects, a real defect area is likely
to be recognized, regardless of the value of ω.
Based on these discussions, consideration of the surface-
roughness states (protrusion, dent, flat and bumpy) seems to be
effective when setting the proportion value for mixing the three
difference images. With regard to protrusion-type defects, the
ratio for the top image is set large (e.g. ω = 0.8), which
aims at avoiding over-recognition caused by the shadow cast
by the defect. Conversely, dent- and bumpy-type defects are
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
Figure 11. Process flow for the surface-roughness state analysis.
recognized by setting a small proportion ratio for the top image
(e.g. ω = 0.2). In the case of flat-type defects, ω = 0.5 is set
as an in-between of the above two cases.
The following subsection describes the processing
algorithm employed to categorize the defect into four types
of surface-roughness state.
5.2. Surface-roughness analysis algorithm
Figure 11 shows the process flow for the surface-roughness
state analysis. First, two indices ((a) the defect height level
and (b) the degree of bumpiness) that express the state of
the surface roughness of a defect are calculated (steps 1–4),
and then the defect is categorized into four types of surface-
roughness state by thresholding (step 5). Detailed descriptions
of each step are given below.
Step 1. Shading enhancement and trinarization
Difference computation of right and left inspection images
is performed to obtain the so-called shading-enhanced image.
This process is also performed for the reference image.
Subtracting the right image from the left image produces an
image with enhanced shading and with a shading direction
that is the same as that in the left image. This means that
for the case of a protrusion-type defect, an uphill slant (bright
shading) emerges on the upper-left side of the defect and a
downhill slant (dark shading) emerges on the lower-right side
of the defect, because the side detectors are aligned at 45◦ to
the chip layout, as shown in figure 4(b).
Next, trinarization of the shading-enhanced image is
conducted to divide the image into three regions, namely uphill
slant, downhill slant and flat regions. In the shading-enhanced
image, the uphill and downhill slant regions have positive and
negative values, respectively, and the flat regions have values
around 0. This leads to the use of the threshold THtri for
trinarization, as expressed in (2):
⎧ defined as (3)
⎨256 if Shade(x, y)  THtri
Tri (x, y) = 128 if − THtri < Shade(x, y) < THtri.
⎩ n i=1
0 if Shade(x, y)  −THtri
(2)
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R Nakagaki et al
In this equation, Shade(x, y) and Tri(x, y) represent the
pixel values of the shading-enhanced and trinarized images on
the coordinate (x, y), respectively.
Examples of the results of trinarization are shown in
figure 11. White pixel areas indicate the uphill slant regions
with pixel values in the shading-enhanced image that are
greater than THtri and the black pixel areas indicate the
downhill slant regions with pixel values that are smaller than
−THtri. The gray pixel areas indicate the flat regions.
Step 2. Extraction of defect shading
Extraction of defect shading is performed by comparing
the trinarized shading-enhanced images with the inspection
and reference areas. Specifically, this is performed by
eliminating the uphill/downhill shading regions, which are
present on both the inspection and reference areas, from
the trinarized shading-enhanced image of the inspection
area.
Step 3. Shading matching
In order to produce a shade map that evaluates the
geometry of the uphill/downhill slant, a process called shading
matching is performed. In this process, the relative position
of the white and black pixels in the trinarized shading-
enhanced image is analyzed and output as a shading map
(figure 12).
First, the white pixel and black pixel images are extracted
from the trinarized image. Second, the shading map is
calculated in order to examine the geometry of the uphill and
downhill slant. This is done by (a) shifting the black pixel
image to the white pixel image, (b) calculating the matching
score at each shifted position and (c) creating the shading map
by arranging the matching score with respect to the shifted
position. The matching score at the position where the black
pixel image is shifted by (X, Y ) to the white pixel image is
1
n
Matching score = |ShdEnhncd(xi , yi )
− ShdEnhncd(xi + X, yi + Y )|, (3)
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
Figure 12. Algorithm for shading matching.
where ShdEnhncd(xi , yi ) is the pixel value of the shading-
enhanced image at coordinate (xi , yi ), where the white and
black pixels are overlapped when the black pixel images are
shifted by (X, Y ) to the white pixel image, and n is the number
of overlapped pixels. In other words, the matching score is
the average of the absolute value of the difference of the pixel
values of the shading-enhanced image when the white and
black pixels are overlapped.
Figure 13 shows examples of the calculated shading maps.
The pixel value of the shading map image is normalized with
respect to the [0, 255] range for visibility. The center of the
shading map is the position where the shift value between black
and white pixel images is (0, 0). For the case of a protrusion-
type defect, the white pixels lie on the upper-left side of the
black pixels, and this matches with the result that the region
with a large matching score lies in the upper-left area (area
[II] depicted in figure 12). On the other hand, for the case of
a dent-type defect, a matching score with a large value lies in
the lower-right area (area [IV]). For the case of bumpy defects,
a matching score with a large value likely lies on both areas
[II] and [IV]. The difference of the surface state is expressed
as the matching score and its position on the shading map, as
shown in figure 13.
Step 4. Calculating two indices: the defect height level
and the degree of bumpiness
Two indices, the defect height level and the degree of
bumpiness, are calculated from the shading map. The height
level represents a quantization of the degree of the protrusion–
flat–dent characteristics of the defect surface. The absolute
value and sign of the defect height level are defined as follows.
The maximum shading matching score becomes the absolute
value of the height level and a positive sign is assigned when
the maximum score lies in the second quadrant (area [II]) and
a negative sign is set when the maximum score lies in the
fourth quadrant (area [IV]). For the case where the maximum
score is 0, i.e. where either of the white and black pixels is not
present in the trinarized shading image, the defect height level
becomes 0. The maximum score lies in either area [II] or area
[IV], because the side detectors are aligned at 45◦ to the chip
layout (figure 4(b)). When the absolute value of the defect
height level is greater than 100, the value 100 is assigned,
so that the range of the defect height level becomes [−100,
100].
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R Nakagaki et al
Figure 13. Examples of calculated shading maps.
The degree of bumpiness is an index that quantizes the
degree of coexistence of protrusion and dent regions. For
the case of uni-modal defects (protrusion or dent alone), the
shading map only has a value on the second or fourth quadrants,
whereas the shading map of bumpy defects has values on
both quadrants. The degree of bumpiness can be calculated
by evaluating the mixture ratio of the matching score in the
second and fourth quadrants of the shade map. Specifically,
the index is calculated according to (4), which uses the average
value of the shade map in the second (MapAveII) and fourth
(MapAveIV) quadrants:
Degree of bumpiness =
⎧  
⎪
⎪ |MapAveII − MapAveIV|
⎨ 100 × 1 −
MapAveII + MapAveIV (4)
⎪
⎪ if (MapAveII + MapAveIV = 0)
⎩
0 if (MapAveII + MapAveIV = 0).
The value is normalized in the range of 0–100, as shown
in (4). Defects with a value of 0 are considered to be uni-modal
and those with values around 100 are bumpy.
Step 5. Categorization
Thresholding is executed using the two calculated indices.
Figure 14 shows the algorithm used for the categorization. A
threshold Th bumpy is used to categorize bumpy-type defects
and two thresholds (Th protrusion, Th dent) are used to
categorize protrusion-type, flat-type and dent-type defects. In
the following section, experimental results for evaluation of
the proposed algorithm are described.
6. Experimental results
6.1. Data
Defect SEM images obtained from two process wafers were
used for the experiments. The specifications of the data are
shown in table 1. Data 1 contain images from a transistor
gate process, where the circuit pattern has a structure with
height with respect to the base. Data 2 contain images from a
Cu interconnect process, where the circuit pattern and the base
have the same height level, because a chemical and mechanical
polishing (CMP) process is applied to the surface of the wafer.
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
Table 1. Details of the experimental data.
Figure 14. Algorithm for surface-roughness state categorization
using two indices.
The total number of defect samples used for the experiments
is 200 (data 1: 95, data 2: 105).
The defect classes included in data 1 are surface particle,
pattern deformation and scratch. Surface particles and pattern
deformations are protrusion-type defects and scratches are
dent-type or bumpy-type defects. The defect classes included
in data 2 are surface particle, scratch, crater, pit and pattern
deformation. Surface particles are a protrusion-type defect,
and scratches, craters and pits are dent-type defects. Pattern
deformation is a flat-type defect. In total, nine defect classes
are included in the experimental data.
Subsection 6.2 presents the evaluation results of the
surface-roughness analysis algorithm detailed in section 5 and
subsection 6.3 provides the evaluation results of the proposed
defect area recognition algorithm.
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6.2. Surface-roughness analysis
Figure 15 shows scatter diagrams of the defect height level
and the degree of bumpiness index values calculated from
each dataset. Figure 15(a) shows the results from data 1.
Protrusion-type defects, such as surface particles and pattern
deformations, have a defect height level value over 10, and the
degree of bumpiness is less than 10 except for one example.
Scratches, which are of dent type or bumpy type, have a wide
distribution on both indices. The range of the defect height
level is from −90 to 0 and the range of the degree of bumpiness
is from 0 to 80. Scratches have a broad distribution on the
defect height level, because this class contains defects with a
wide variety of depth. The broad distribution on the degree of
bumpiness is because the scratch class contains defects with
both bumpy structures and simple uni-modal dent structures.
The proposed two indices successfully express the trend of
surface roughness of defects for data 1.
The same considerations are evident for data 2, with
distributions of the two indices shown in figure 15(b).
The surface particle protrusion-type defects have a defect
height level over 10 and a degree of bumpiness less than
10. Conversely, scratches (dent-type defect) have a broad
distribution on both indices: ranging from −80 to −50 for
the defect height level and from 0 to 100 for the degree of
bumpiness. Other dent-type defects, craters and pits, have
broad distributions, especially for the defect height level. The
scatter diagram also shows that pattern deformations (flat-type
defect) in the Cu interconnect have a value of almost 0 in terms
of both indices.
The proposed two indices have also successfully
expressed the trends of surface roughness of defects for
data 2. This demonstrates that the four-type categorization
algorithm (figure 14) is expected to provide appropriate results.
The experiment described in the following subsection used
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
(a)
Figure 15. Scatter diagrams of the two calculated indices. (a) Data 1 and (b) data 2.
Figure 16. Examples of recognized defect areas (enveloped) of defect samples in data 1 and data 2.
the following values for thresholding: Th bumpy = 10,
Th protrusion = 5, Th dent = −1.
The limitations of the proposed algorithm are given as
follows. In step 2 of the surface-roughness analysis algorithm
(figure 11), shading information caused by non-defect regions
is eliminated. This is simply accomplished by eliminating
the shading region that occurs on both the inspection and
reference areas from the trinarized shading-enhanced image
of the inspection area. However, the algorithm does not work
appropriately for the case where a circuit pattern surrounding
defect areas is deformed and the deformation causes
the shading. The example expressed as 1 in figure 15(a)
is the case of a surface particle. The calculated value of the
degree of bumpiness was 22, which is much higher than the
surface particles of the other samples. The trinarized shading
image (figure 15(a)) shows that the deformation of a circuit
pattern (on the right side of the particle) causes the shading that
was used in the shade matching process. This is an example
of the coexistence of multi-type defects. The other example of
a surface particle marked by 2 in figure 15(b) has a degree
of bumpiness of approximately 10, which is larger than the
other samples of the same defect class. This result is caused
by the same reason as the first example. If the coexistence of
multi-type defects, as in data 1 and 2, is rare, then this may not
be an issue; however, this may be a problem when such cases
are frequent.
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R Nakagaki et al
(b)
6.3. Defect area recognition
This subsection presents the results of the test of the proposed
defect area recognition algorithm. Weight parameters, for
mixing of the multiple difference images, were set to ω =
0.8 for protrusion-type defects, ω = 0.2 for dent- and bumpy-
type defects, and ω = 0.5 for flat-type defects. The criteria
for successful recognition are defined as the case where the
defect boundary calculated as the convex hull of the defect
binary image contains a true defect region for approximately
90–110% of the area.
Examples of the detected defect boundaries for data 1 and
2 are shown in figure 16. Each defect was properly recognized,
regardless of the defect type, by setting the appropriate weight
value for the surface-roughness state. The accuracy for
recognition was 98.9% (94/95) and 99.9% (104/105) for data
1 and 2, respectively, and 98.9% (198/200) for the total. Two
examples that suffer from mischaracterization of the surface
roughness described in the previous subsection correspond to
the samples that were misrecognized. This shows that there is
room for improvement in the accuracy of defect recognition
by updating the surface-roughness analysis algorithm.
7. Summary
A technique for automatic recognition of defect areas
using SEM images was investigated with the objective of
Meas. Sci. Technol. 20 (2009) 075503
improving the efficiency of defect analysis in semiconductor
manufacturing processes. The following is a summary of
conclusions.
• A novel defect recognition technique was proposed, in
which three types of SEM images are used; top, left and
right SEM images are acquired by selectively detecting
the secondary and backscattered electrons emitted from a
given specimen.
• The proposed technique is based on the comparison
inspection technique. After registration of the inspection
and reference images, difference images are calculated
for each detected image, and the results are mixed to
obtain a final difference image, followed by thresholding
to obtain a final recognition result. The number and
direction of secondary and backscattered electrons are
highly dependent on the roughness of a defect surface;
therefore, the algorithm determines the proportion for
mixing three difference images according to a defect
surface-roughness analysis.
• The surface-roughness analysis is achieved by analyzing
the shading information produced according to the
roughness state of each defect. The roughness
characteristics are expressed by two indices: the defect
height level and the degree of bumpiness.
• Experimental tests were performed using 200 samples
from nine defect classes of two process wafers, and a total
recognition accuracy of 98.9% was verified.
For future work, evaluation tests will be conducted under a
volume production environment with a large number of defect
samples. The adaptability of the algorithm to more advanced
device manufacturing processes that may contain a new type
of defects will be verified. In addition, introduction of the
proposed approach to automatic defect classification will be
used to verify the efficacy for automatic defect monitoring and
yield management.
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